Preview
FROM FIRE AND ICE
Runs until January 18, 2004
Whyte Museum (Banff)
From Fire and Ice is a multi-disciplinary exhibit connecting four artists that find inspiration in water no matter what form it takes. Since 2003 is the United Nation’s International Year of Fresh Water, the Whyte Museum in Banff is presenting four different exhibitions to celebrate.
One of those exhibitions is the kiln-fired clay works of Ed Bamiling entitled Passages. Bamiling is well-known in Banff as the ceramics facilitator at The Banff Centre, but he is also a dedicated artist in his own right. Passages is located in one part of the main gallery, where Bamiling features highly textured slabs and 26 shallow bowls in a spectrum of nuanced colours. Other pieces include non-functional bowl forms and a cornucopia that is erupting with several hundred ceramic cubes.
"I have always been intrigued by passages, by the potential for discovery in moving from one place to another, from one experience to another," he says.
"What is at the end of this corridor? Around that corner? Over that ridge? Through this opening? How will water and wind sculpt our world through the passage of time?"
In the other section of the main gallery is Shoalwan: River Through Fire, River of Ice. It’s a large sculptural piece by artist Lyndal Osborne that combines her experiences with two rivers – one in the city of her adopted home and one in her native land.
Osborne was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, but has resided in Edmonton since 1971, where she is a professor of art and design at the University of Alberta. Known as a printmaker for the past 30 years, she has more recently been exploring themes of nature and culture using sculptural forms.
Returning to her homeland in 2002 for a month-long residency in Canberra, Osborne discovered that wildfires were razing the area. That event led her to combine ideas about two disparate places: the often frozen North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton and the Shoalhaven River of New South Wales, Australia.
"When I got there the whole place was on fire," she says. "I thought why not contrast my experience with a place surrounded by fire."
Using more than 7,000 bottles to represent a river and then placing organic and manmade objects from both places in the installation, Osborne has created a piece that is an abstraction of place. The fire-scorched stones from the Shoalhaven and the deer and elk antlers from the banks of the North Saskatchewan are brought together to form a metaphorical tableaux that explores such dichotomies as the natural/manufactured world, north/south and fire/ice.
In the Elizabeth Rummel Room of the museum is Terra Emota from photographer Chip Forelli. This New York City-based artist is better known as a commercial photographer who turns out slick work for Fortune 500 companies such as BMW and AT&T.
For this show, however, Forelli turns his attention to the outdoors with a series of masterfully printed black-and-white prints that capture mood more than place. These prints are all about fog, water and the mystery of nature.
The final exhibition in From Fire and Ice is Vertical Extremities, a collection of action photography from Canmore resident Dan Hudson. Originally from Toronto, Hudson moved to Banff in the early 1980s to study painting at The Banff Centre. Although he returned to Toronto and was a successful painter there, the lure of the Rockies and adventure on the mountain slopes drew him back to the West.
Returning to Alberta in 1988 Hudson strapped on a snowboard and created a lucrative career marketing crisp images of snow-crazed thrill-seekers to magazines across the world. Today, he is known as one of the best action photographers in Canada, combining a deep love of the mountains with an excellent eye for composition.
For Vertical Extremities, Hudson presents sepia-toned photos that were originally 35 mm colour transparencies. By exhibiting sepia prints of adrenaline junkies in action, Hudson crosses the boundaries of sports and photography and adds another dimension to the kind of work that more often seen in the pages of glossy sports magazines |
Copyright ©2003 FFWD. All rights reserved.